Casting Directors Tackle Film Adaptations

Last week I mentioned that networks had made 99 percent of their pilot pickups. Now it's probably 100 percent, after CBS' Feb. 24 order for an untitled Martin Lawrence comedy project. (No CD yet; it's too early. But whoever it is, let's hope they bring in Reginald Ballard, aka Bruh Man, to read for a part.)

Since I started this column whilst pilot season was in medias res, it's been easy so far to write cohesive pieces, centered on a single theme. But most weeks, it's going to be me trying to find some thread linking whatever random projects I come across. So you might as well get used to disjointed, rambling garbage. (Try watching a few episodes of "Lost" on Netflix instant to warm yourself up.)

First up this week is a film project that has "2013 awards contender" written all over it. It's called "The Butler," and it's a biopic of Eugene Allen, an African-American who took a job as a pantry man in the White House in 1952 and worked there through the administrations of eight presidents before retiring in 1986 as the head butler. The source material for the script is a 2008 profile in The Washington Post by Wil Haygood, which I urge you to read. Lee Daniels ("Precious") is directing, and a whole bunch of big names are being talked about for roles: David Oyelowo as Allen, Oprah Winfrey as his wife, Mila Kunis as Jackie Kennedy, and Liam Neeson as LBJ. So, yeah, wow. I'm tearing up just imagining this movie. Billy Hopkins of Chrystie Street Casting in New York and Leah Daniels-Butler, sister of Lee Daniels (Lee and Leah? Really, Mom and Dad?) in Los Angeles are handling casting. Financing isn't locked down, but plans are to get under way in May in New Orleans.

Next is a film that will also contend for awards in 2013, but, like, Razzies. I'm sure you're familiar with that old axiom that great books make mediocre movies, and mediocre books make great movies. Well, somebody must not have told the producers of "Atlas Shrugged: Part I," who managed to turn a mediocre book into a piss-poor movie, one that was roundly panned by critics and, much like the novel, left unfinished by most people who started it. Unfortunately, instead of taking a cue from John Galt and retiring to a secluded objectivist paradise in protest, the producers have decided that their work must continue.

Thus "Atlas Shrugged: Part II" will begin principal photography in April in Los Angeles. Jeff Gerrard, a big-time commercial casting director, is doing the casting for the film. No word yet on which, if any, cast members from the first film will return.

So I guess I sort of had a theme this week: literary adaptations. Plus both were movies. In any event, even if I can't always write a column in which the projects relate to each other in any way, you can always count on "Lost" jokes to tie everything together.